A/N If you find parts of this chapter confusing…good. You're supposed to, everything will be explained later.

Disclaimer: I still don't own Narnia or Skandar or anything really. It's quite sad.

XXX

Lucy was curled up in the corner of her room, crying when Peter found her.

"Lucy!" he gasped, horrified to find his baby sister in such a sorry state. "Lucy, what's wrong."

The little girl opened her mouth but it seemed she had been rendered completely speechless. Instead she gave up and curled herself into Peter's outstretched arms, sobbing into his surprisingly muscular chest.

Peter couldn't bear seeing his normally cheerful sister so upset. He rocked her back and forth, ignoring the dampness her tears were creating on his nightshirt.

The next morning Lucy didn't show up at the breakfast table. Peter and Susan exchanged worried looks and ate in silence, too worried to manage to articulate more than one sentence to one another every few minutes.

"I'm going to check on Lucy."

Peter nodded as Susan left the room, her expression that of complete and unwavering determination. He turned to see one of the younger dufflepuds and offered him a slice of fruit cake (Peter wasn't much of a fruit fan but, as Susan had baked the cake herself, he couldn't really turn his nose up at it).

Lucy turned as her sister came into the room. She could see the poorly disguised disgust on her face as Susan caught sight of the moth eaten old dress Lucy was wearing. If she hadn't been so concerned she would have demanded that Lucy take the blasted thing of immediately and change into something proper.

"Are you alright, Lu?"

Lucy shook her head, tracing her fingertip down the dust covered windowpane.

Susan took a tentative step closer. "What is it? What's wrong?"

Lucy breathed against the window, rubbing at the condensation her breath caused with the sleeve of her ragged dress. "Just a dream." she whispered hoarsely.

Susan cocked her head to the side. "It was The dream again?"

Lucy shook her head, turning to meet her sister's eyes. "He died. She killed him."

Susan frowned. "Lucy. You're not making any sense."

"The witch killed him. She killed Edmund." With that Lucy burst into tears leaving her bewildered sister to try and console her. "It's okay Lucy. It's just a dream, no one can hurt you in a dream, remember?"

Lucy made a little noise of annoyance. "You don't understand, Susan. Every time someone hits Edmund I feel it too. I wake up with bruises. When he died," she paused to catch her breath, "I thought I was going to die too."

Susan kissed her sister's head and stroked her soft hair comfortingly. "We'll sort this out. Coriakin will know how to make it stop this time. He promised he'd look into it. By the Lion, Lu! If that doesn't work we can go to Aslan himself."

Lucy brightened at this and slowly stopped crying, ultimately spending over three hours talking about Aslan with her relieved sister.

*x*

Peter was attempting to practice his sword work with one of the Duffers when he noticed a bright light approaching slowly. He removed his sword from against the terrified monopod's chest and turned, blushing furiously as he realised the exquisite light belonged to Lilliandil, the daughter of Ramandu.

"Master Peter!"

"Lilli, you came!" he couldn't disguise his shock (and joy) at her sudden arrival.

"Yes, of course. You needed me." Her soft voice sounded like bells and Peter was quite certain he could listen to it all day and night, if she would let him.

"Where are your sisters?"

"Lucy's napping in the library and Susan's translating some old Narnian runes." he paused when he noticed a quizzical expression spread over the half-star's face, it made her look exceptionally young and, he blushed again, rather adorable. "It's a hobby of hers."

"I never took Susan for one to translate runes."

Peter smiled. "Well she is. I suppose you want to see Coriakin?"

Lilliandil smiled serenely, shaking her head. "I could help you practice, for a little while. After all, it seems your companion has given up the game."

Peter cocked his head, confused, turning when the half-star jutted her chin daintily in the direction of a fleeing dufflepud. "Ah." He pulled the sword that had been abandoned from the grass and passed it to the patiently waiting Lilliandil, looking at his own sword for a moment.

Rhindon had been given to him when he was thirteen; it was a beautiful looking sword, the perfect size and weight for him with a golden hilt and a golden lion head as the pommel. There was a golden inscription on both sides of the blade one reading 'When Aslan bares his teeth, winter meets its death' whilst the other read 'When He Shakes His Mane, We Shall Have Spring Again' He hadn't understood the significance of the lines until Susan happened upon them in an old book of prophecies.

"Um, Peter?" Lilliandil waved her sword as close as she dared to his face.

"Oh! Sorry, my lady. En garde?"

The two of them practised for over two hours, neither of them aware of exactly how much time had passed, too intent on gaining the upper hand. It was only when Peter noticed the shadow on Coriakin's old sundial was indicating that it was now four o'clock they realised how much time had passed.

"Oh! I am sorry. I really shouldn't have kept you."

Lilliandil waved a hand dismissively. "No one knew I was here to miss me. I've enjoyed your company Peter." She walked off, smiling contentedly to herself.

Peter grinned, spinning his sword fancily in his hand, turning to find Lucy leaning against the old oak tree that stood incongruously in the strange shrub filled garden.

"Lucy!"

Lucy smiled softly to herself, squinting at her brother. "Hullo, Pete. Can I join you?"

Peter grimaced for a moment; what on earth would Susan say if she caught Lucy engaging in such unladylike activities?

As if reading his thoughts Lucy laughed. "Susan's still translating the runes. One of the Dufflepuds tried to correct her. She was yelling so much she woke me up; I thought the mansion was on fire. It looked like she was going to explode"

Peter nodded and pointed to the sword, wordlessly suggesting she should pick it up. He spat on Rhindon, wiping a smudge from the otherwise perfect blade with the side of his fist. "Are you sure you can use it?" He called to Lucy; he didn't have to look up to know that the sword was much too big for the ten year old to hold.

"Yes," Lucy huffed. Though she wasn't going to admit it, the sword was incredibly heavy and she'd be lucky if she could swing it more than two or three times let alone get any hits in.

"Lu," Peter reprimanded as he caught sight of his red-cheeked sister. "You're going to hurt yourself. I'm sure we have a dwarf sword somewhere."

The pair spent the next half hour searching for the dwarf-sized sword that Peter had been so certain he would be able to find. They had just finished searching the living room when Peter found himself walking with Lucy one minute and flat on the floor with someone on top of him the next.

"Ow."

Peter opened his eyes slightly wincing when a bright pale blue light assaulted them. "I'm sorry, I really should have been looking where I was going," he managed, standing up when Ramandu's daughter had finally gotten off him.

Lilliandil looked down abashedly. "Actually, Peter it's my fault. I wasn't looking where I was going. I was in shock."

Peter nodded sympathetically though he was too kind to admit it really had been Lilliandil's fault. At any rate the poor girl looked upset enough already without him making her feel any worse.

"What happened?"

If Lilliandil had looked sad before it was nothing to how she looked when she turned to face Lucy. Her face half-crumpled and tears welled up in her eyes. "I inadvertently overhead something I'm quite certain I wasn't supposed to."

Peter's brow furrowed in confusion. However, he had been brought up to know better than to be nosy. Lucy, on the other hand could get away with any lack of manners due to her age. "What did you hear?" Peter groaned.

"If it wasn't meant for my ears I'm sure it wasn't meant for your young ones either." Lilliandil's voice was firm.

"Indeed," a soft voice floated from the top of the stairs. Coriakin had been watching the whole exchange, Susan standing a little ways behind him, clutching her runes book for dear life, her face ashen with shock.

XXX

A/N Thank you to everyone who has been reviewing, it's really helpful and therefore helps me improve my writing. I just want you guys to know this is the first fanfic I have tried writing which isn't all based on a romance…so this is new territory for me… I'd like to thank all my friends (Especially Jasmine who keeps reviewing and inspiring me to keep writing) for constant inspiration and Emily who always gets sent parts of the chapters I'm writing, whether it's with or without warning. I must also warn you all that I smashed my Ipod this morning (and cut myself on the smashed screen), the reason I am telling you this is that I tend to write my chapters on it and it's now in for repair. This could mean that chapters take a bit longer than normal. As always, please R&R.